Back in March, when news of the infamous Sequester came out, I wrote a blog post about how cutting any more money from the NIH budget would be devastating to scientific researchers. Well…here we go. Let the devastation begin.
On the Friday before a holiday weekend—a holiday, I should point out, that celebrates the spirit of workers and their contributions to this nation—I should have been excited and ready to have some fun. But I wasn’t. Why not? A colleague of mine posted an article from the Huffington Post by Sam Stein entitled “Nearly 20 Percent of Scientists Contemplate Moving Overseas Due in Part to Sequestration.” Whoa. What? It sounded crazy, so I read it. Then I read it again. And then I got sad, genuinely sad; so sad, in fact, my excitement for the holiday weekend was lost.
Let me just highlight a few things from this article. In a study that will be released by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) this week, 3,700 scientists from all over the country were interviewed about the state of their profession. Here are some of the answers they got.
1. 80% said they spent more time writing grants now they did three years ago.
2. Two thirds, or 67%, said they were receiving less grant funding then they did three years ago.
3. 55% said they have a colleague who had lost a job or expects to soon. Hold on a second. Let’s think about this one. That’s more than half, so every other scientist knows someone who has lost their job or is about to. That’s INSANE!
4. And the final one, which is incredible—18% said they were considering continuing their job in another country.
Can we just consider this for a second? If we round up to 20%, this study suggests that one out of every five scientists is considering leaving the country to continue their research because our government is not providing them with appropriate access to the funding they require. That is so sick and sad, it makes me angry. Now I know our government and Congress sometimes need things to be explained in ways they can understand, so let me break down how this will affect our country as a whole.
- Obviously, the less research going on this country, the fewer cures we find. Can’t get more straightforward than that. I assume they understand that, right?
- Less funding means people get laid off, which equals fewer jobs. Now, the people getting laid off here are smart, very educated people, most of whom have advanced degrees. That’s a good idea, let’s take their jobs away from them.
- Cutting science domestically increases the rate of success abroad. In terms of percentage of gross domestic product, the United States is reducing its investment in scientific research. Of the 10 countries investing the most money in scientific research, the United States is the only country that has reduced its investment in scientific research as a percentage of GDP since 2011.
- Bye-bye science as a career. How in the world are young people going to want to enter this field? Hey kids, you should go out there, spend five years in graduate school working 60 hours a week. The stipend was $18,779 per year in 2009. The average max unemployment benefit the same year was $21,060, by the way. THEN, after grad school, you have to get a fellowship, which ain’t easy anymore because grants don’t get funded, making on average $42,000. 42K for people who hold the highest academic degree one can get. So that’s 11 years out of school, and still you don’t have a career. Absolutely ridiculous, and I’m ashamed of our country.
Bottom line: our country and government have been and are failing us. We spend money on a lot of questionable things, in my opinion, but scientific research should not be something we cut. It should always be increasing. It creates high-tech jobs, innovation, creativity, and oh, cures for deadly diseases so we can all live long and healthy lives.
So please, Mr. President and our esteemed congressmen and women, get your heads out of your you-know-whats and stop killing scientific research as we know it. It’s wrong and it’s shameful. 1.3 billion you cut from the NIH government due to this sequester. That equates to losing 700 grants. 700! You’re telling me you can’t come up with 1.3 billion dollars to keep the funding at the same rate it was (which is not good to begin with)? I find that hard to believe. I love our country, but when 20% of a profession contemplates leaving it because of what you’re doing, something is WRONG!
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